Red Hat opens China office

Red Hat has opened its first office in China as part of an effort to tap demand for low-cost software in developing markets.

Staff in Red Hat's Beijing office plan to work closely with other IT companies in the region, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Dell and Oracle.

Establishing local support for the company's university training programme on open-source development and Linux usage is one of Red Hat Beijing's first initiatives. The company said it was working with work with Tsinghua and Nanjing Universities.

A company spokeswoman declined to say how many employees Red Hat has in China. Red Hat's other facilities in Asia-Pacific include offices in Singapore, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Stacy Cowley writes for IDG News Service